The present invention relates to a seasoning container, and more particularly to a seasoning container for holding granular seasonings. The seasoning container is provided with a grinding mechanism for grinding the granular seasonings into powder for directly sparkling over food, and has a removable shell that can be differently designed so that each selection of a different shell for mounting around the main body may give the seasoning container a different appearance.
There are various types of seasoning containers available in the markets. One of these seasoning containers is designed for holding granular seasonings, such as black pepper and salt. A grinding mechanism is provided in the seasoning container and can be rotated by a user to grind the granular seasonings in the seasoning container into powder for sparkling over food. Such seasoning container with grinding mechanism tends to maintain the flavor of seasonings for a prolonged time and is usually found in big-scale restaurants.
As shown in FIG. 7, most commercially available seasoning containers, either with or without the grinding mechanism, are integrally molded and therefore require a large quantity of material to form them. These conventional seasoning containers usually have a thick and heavy shell 40 that has a fixed shape decided at the time of molding. That is, the conventional seasoning containers have fixed appearance once a mold has been selected for them. One mold can only produce one monotonous type of seasoning container, and no part included in the seasoning container can be replaced with parts of seasoning containers made from other molds. Moreover, to facilitate production through molding, the conventional seasoning containers are usually made of materials that are easy to mold, such as glass and plastics. Metallic material that has beautiful and bright luster but is expensive and difficult to fabricate is normally not selected for making seasoning containers. Moreover, metals are subject to chemical and/or physical changes after contacting with some seasonings, such as salt, for a long time. Such chemical and/or physical changes of the metallic materials might sometimes have adverse influence on human beings. All these factors have prevented manufacturers from developing novel, economical, and practical seasoning containers, particularly those with metal shells.